I’ve been in a funk lately. Maybe doing the same things and going through the same routine as of late had finally gotten to me. Maybe one of my dogs being diagnosed with cancer is doing it. I know that watching the news doesn’t help. A lot of things are adding up to a big nothing: A series of grotesque and terrible commercials on TV. Denim mini-skirts with ruffles on baby prostitutes. The service at just about every restaurant on Transit road. Getting a hangover before I get a buzz when I drink. And seeing about 3957 bad movies this year certainly hasn’t done anything to dissuade me from lying down and waiting for death.

Then I went and saw The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. I mean, the title alone should’ve been enough to make me cram a knife into my throat. Tim Allen continuing to play out a series of movies that parents have to get drunk just to get through when their functionally retarded children want to watch them. The very sight of this doughy bastard in itself should get some kind of Crimes Against Humanity commission working around the clock through New Year’s, let alone him getting in front of a camera because “the kids kept asking when another one was coming out,” and he didn’t want to disappoint them. So I reluctantly went to see this movie, expecting to die by my own hand before the end of the first act. If nothing else I would’ve traumatized some family of mongoloids. But with my luck, they’d pet my carcass and keep whimpering for me to wake up because “Santa saved another Christmas.” I’d rather have my corpse violated by a bunch of Masons or something.

So I sat there, nodding off throughout the opening credits and wishing cancer on all the sugared-up little bastards that piled into the theater with their shrieky little voices. It was right on par with having my teeth and fingernails removed. But I eventually came around because numbness had finally set in—I no longer felt pain. I was really beginning to think it was the end for me and Santa Clause 3 was just the thing to finally put me over the edge. Then it happened.

Martin Short showed up as Jack Frost. I fucking hate Martin Short! I despise the little weasel bastard with every fiber of my being. Let me put this into context: if Osama Bin Laden is an asshole then Martin Short is a FUCKING asshole. I know killing a whole lot of people is a truly evil thing to do that probably cannot be topped, but flaunting that loose-skinned little carcass is right up there for me. I would spit on Martin Short if I ever saw him in public. Short is like a walking penis. He literally looks like a penis and scrotum to me. Not the kind of scrotum you’ve got in the morning where it’s still kind of firm; I’m talking about the chewed up saggy gum wad you’ve got after you’ve been running around all day like some kind of crazy person. It’s just loose skin and when it brushes against your leg or gets caught in your taint you almost pray to God that you don’t get laid that day out of fear that someone will know the evil that lurks between your legs. This atrocity of a human being might almost be worth forgiving if Short were actually funny, but I am hard-pressed to think of anything he’s ever done that was funny. And yes, I have seen Three Amigos. His sense of humor needs to go to therapy if not go sit in a corner and think about what it’s done.

But after I saw his little peckerwood face on that screen, something happened to me. I was quickly infused with not only a swelling hatred that could easily power an SUV for three years if correctly harnessed, but I felt the Christmas Spirit that I haven’t known for years. Granted, it was in the form of a terrible plot that wasn’t funny in the slightest, but Santa Clause 3 succeeded in rallying me to pull for a coke-dealing Santa as he tried to convince his dim-witted in-laws that they were in Canada instead of the North Pole. All while he tries to keep Jack Frost from taking over Christmas.

As I pulled for Santa, I thought about how this was going to be the best Christmas ever. I made a list of people I was going to punch in the face this year. I’d hand them a candy cane with my right and bust them in the head with a quick left. Maybe I’ll even get one of those really big ones and keep the end sharp. Maybe even put an eye or two out! I made a vow to stay liquored up on cough medicine throughout the holidays and wear a Santa hat between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Oh, it’s going to be a wonderful holiday and a wonderful life! Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls! Merry Christmas, movie house! Mary Christmas, emporium! Merry Christmas you wonderful old Building and Loan! Hey! Merry Christmas, Mr. Short!!!